2001_What Are Hebrew Versions.pdf

WHAT ARE HEBREW VERSIONS?

ost who use the New World Translation (published by

the Watch Tower Society) are familiar with its

reference to the Hebrew versions. What are these

Hebrew versions and why are they used to reinstate the divine

name Jehovah in the Christian Scriptures of the New World

Translation ?

Why did the New World Translation use Hebrew versions?

All ancient Hebrew language manuscripts of the Hebrew

Scriptures use the Tetragrammaton (written hwhy in Hebrew

letters) for God’s name. The divine name is used almost 7,000

times between Genesis and the last book, Malachi. The New

World Translation is to be commended for translating these

references as Jehovah rather than LORD .

However, the Christian Scriptures were written in Greek.

The publishers of the New World Translation truthfully admit

that there are no ancient Christian Scripture manuscripts of

any kind that use the Tetragrammaton . 1 This is true in spite of

numerous examples of the Tetragrammaton in the Greek

Septuagint Hebrew Scriptures.

However, because many Hebrew versions use t h e

Tetragrammaton in the Christian Scriptures, the translators of

the New World Translation used these Hebrew translations of

the Christian Scriptures as the basis for reinstating the divine

name Jehovah 237 times in their Christian Scriptures.

1 For reference see, Aid to Bible Understanding, page 886.

However, in spite of the absolute lack of any manuscripts

containing the Hebrew letters of the Tetragrammaton, the

Watch Tower Society maintains that the Tetragrammaton

was used by the Inspired Christian Greek Scripture writers

and was subsequently removed because of a great heresy

in the 2 nd and 3 rd centuries C.E. For a complete discussion

of this lack of evidence to support such a heresy, see the

book The Tetragrammaton and the Christian Greek

Scriptures.

What are Hebrew versions?

Hebrew versions are simply Hebrew language translations

of the Greek Scriptures for use by Hebrew-speaking readers. In

fact, most have been published with one purpose being t h e

conversion of Jews to Christianity. For that reason, some of

these Hebrew versions were published by a Trinitarian Bible

Society. Because the Tetragrammaton ( hwhy ) is a word

understood by Hebrew speakers, it is frequently found in these

Hebrew versions. 2 The New World Translation uses 25 Hebrew

versions (and two non-version sources) as footnote references

citing hwhy in the Christian Scriptures.

Are Hebrew versions ancient texts?

Most assume that these Hebrew versions are ancient texts.

In fact, they are not. The earliest complete Hebrew version

cited by the New World Translation was translated from t h e

King James Greek text in 1599. The most recent Hebrew version

cited in the New World Translation was translated in 1979

from a “New Testament” Greek text published in 1975. Of

course, all of the Greek texts from which these versions were

translated can be readily examined today. None of these Greek

texts contain a single occurrence of either hwhy in Hebrew letters

or even the divine name transliterated into Greek letters.

An example of a Hebrew version

J 18 is one of the Hebrew versions used by the New World

Bible Translation Committee to substantiate its use of t h e

Tetragrammaton. The 1969 edition of the Kingdom Interlinear

Translation (also published by the Watch Tower Society) gives

the following information regarding this version:

J 18

Greek Scriptures in Hebrew. In London, England, in 1885,

a new Hebrew translation of the Christian Greek Scriptures

was published. This new translation was commenced by

Isaac Salkinson and completed after his death by Christian

David Ginsburg. Our oldest copy is of the third edition

published in 1891. This has been compared with the small

edition published by the Trinitarian Bible Society, London,

2 The reader may be surprised to realize that the

Tetragrammaton is frequently used by the Christian Jewish

translators to identify Jesus with hwhy in these Trinitarian

Hebrew versions. For further information, see the short

book, The New World Translation and Hebrew Versions.

England, in 1939, and also with the Hebrew-English New

Testament published in 1941 by the same Society (page

29).

When we study the 237 Jehovah references, a large number

of the footnotes cite J 18 . As expected, we will find confirmation

of the presence of the Tetragrammaton in this Hebrew version

exactly as listed in the New World Translation.

However, the title page of J 18 gives this information:

T HE

N EW T ESTAMENT

OUR L ORD AND S AVIOUR

J ESUS C HRIST

Translated out of the original Greek: and with

the former translations diligently compared

and revised, by His Majesty's special command

Did you notice the reference to the source material for t h e

Hebrew version? The word version simply means translation .

Yet, while studying the Tetragrammaton in the Christian

Scriptures of these Hebrew versions, it seldom occurs to us that

we are talking about translations from a Greek text that

plainly does not use the Tetragrammaton.

Manuscript dates in the Jehovah footnotes

The footnotes for any Jehovah reference in the New World

Translation Christian Scriptures give meaningful information

regarding both version and manuscript dates.

Revelation 4:11 is one of the important Jehovah verses.

The verse appears in the Kingdom Interlinear Translation as

follows:

11 [Axio" ei\, oJ kuvrio" kai; oJ qeo;" hJmw`n,

Worthy you are, the Lord and the God of us,

labei`n th;n dovxan kai; th;n timh;n kai; th;n duvnamin,

to receive the glory and the honor and the power,

o{ti su; e[ktisa" ta; pavnta, kai; dia;

because you created the all (things) and through

to; qevlhmav sou h\san kai; ejktivsqhsan.

the will of you they were and they were created

The New World Translation quoted in the right hand margin

translates the verse:

11 "You are worthy, Jehovah,* even our God, to receive the

glory and the honor and the power, because you created all

things, and because of your will they existed and were

created."

At the bottom of the page, the Jehovah footnote is given:

11 * Jehovah, J 7,8,13,14,16,18 ; Lord, Å AV g Sy h .

The verse footnote lists six Hebrew versions (J 7,8,13,14,16,18 )

which are used as evidence for reinstating Jehovah ; two early

Greek manuscripts ( a Sinaitic MS and A AlexandrineMS ) which

have Lord in the Greek manuscript; and two versions (the Latin

Vulgate and a Syriac version) which substantiate Lord .

J 7 Christian Greek Scriptures in Hebrew ; Elias

Hutter.

1599

J 8 Christian Greek Scriptures in Hebrew ;

William Robertson.

1661

J 13 Christian Greek Scriptures in Hebrew ; A.

McCaul and others.

1838

J 14 Christian Greek Scriptures in Hebrew ; John

Christian Reichardt.

1846

J 16 Christian Greek Scriptures in Hebrew ; John

Christian Reichardt and Joachim H. R.

Blesenthal.

1866

J 18 Christian Greek Scriptures in Hebrew ; Isaac

Salkinson.

1885

From this same verse, a similar (though shorter) list 3 is

given indicating Greek manuscripts that contain the Greek

word Kyrios ( Lord ).

3 The Greek word Kyrios ( Kuvrio~ ) is translated Lord in the

Kingdom Interlinear Translation. The number of references

to Kyrios (or Lord ) passages are fewer in the Kingdom

Interlinear Translation only because the editors have chosen

to cite so few of the over 5,000 ancient Greek manuscripts

that are available today. All of these manuscripts are uniform

in their use of Kyrios (or Theos , which is translated Go d )

rather than the Tetragrammaton. The United Bible Societies'

Christian Greek Scripture textual apparatus (the Textual

Commentary on the Greek New Testament which shows all

textual variants in cited Greek manuscripts) was consulted for

each of the 237 Jehovah references. This volume lists all

Sinaitic MS ; an uncial Greek manuscript.

4 th cent.

Alexandrine MS; an uncial Greek manuscript. 5 th cent.

V g

Latin Vulgate; a revision of Old Latin by

Eusebius Jerome.

405 CE

Sy h

Syriac Peshitta Version.

464 CE

What do these dates tell us?

The Kingdom Interlinear Translation cites six Hebrew

version sources for Revelation 4:11. The date of the earliest

version is 1599 C.E., while the latest version is dated 1885 C.E.

Two Greek manuscripts of the fourth and fifth centuries (301-

400 C.E., and 401-500 C.E. respectively) are cited for this verse

in support of the Greek word Kyrios .

The translators of the New World Translation chose to use

the divine name in 237 selected verses by virtue of supporting

evidence from Hebrew translations of 1385 C.E. and later. B y

way of contrast, the earliest evidence available for the Greek

word Kyrios ( Lord ), referred to in the Kingdom Interlinear

Translation's footnotes, was from reliable Greek manuscripts

dating as early as 300 C.E. None of these manuscripts contain

the Tetragrammaton. These are the same Greek texts from

which the Hebrew versions were translated.

We must ask ourselves if these Hebrew versions prove that

the original writers of the Christian Scriptures used t h e

Tetragrammaton in these 237 locations. It is clear that they do

not. These Hebrew translators used the same Greek texts to

translate their versions as any translator during the same

periods of time used to translate all other English Christian

Greek Scriptures that correctly use Lord.

major Greek Scripture manuscript variations from which

translators must choose. The following tabulation was made

for each of the Jehovah references. 71 of the 237

references are specifically discussed in this textual

apparatus. The presence of the Tetragrammaton is never

mentioned at any of these 71 verses, and is therefore not

considered as a textual variant in any known Greek

manuscript. Further, because the remaining 166 references

are not mentioned, we are assured that no basis for textual

variants exists in any of the 237 Jehovah references. A

discussion of Kyrios [ Lord ] and Theos [God] as the choice for

the specific verse occurs 31 times.

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